Strawberries

Yum! It's strawberry time. Well, actually it has been strawberry pickin' time for the past two weeks. First, the Cavendish strawberries became ripe, then the Cabots, and now the Jewel strawberries. I've been selling them (once) at the Farmer's Market and to friends and colleagues of my husband. My small little patch has made enough to almost cover the insurance for the Farmer's Market. Next year we will have four more rows of Cavendish. I am wishing that I planted Jewel instead of the Canvendish. But I'll plant more of that variety next year. The reason I wish I had planted differently is that the Cavendish, although tasty, big, and early, tends to get the gray mold very easily. The Jewel variety keeps its fruit off the ground for the most part and doesn't seem to be as susceptible to the fungus that causes the mold. In addition, Jewel is very tasty and sweet.

This morning my wonderful husband took six quarts to work to sell. (For those interested, we sell our strawberries at $4/quart and they are always less than 24 hours old.) I still had seven pints from yesterday picked. And before the rains came mid morning Ben and I picked the Jewel row again. We (well, more like I) picked four more quarts. What to do with that many strawberries? I could freeze them for future strawberry desserts or make jam out of them or squish them up and top ice cream with them ( a very scrumptious thing to do!). But recently while I was slicing some for my breakfast cereal I remembered that I purchased a super food dehydrator last year. So I've been dehydrating my extra strawberries.

At first I was slicing them individually by hand. Painstakingly slow. Sort of fun, but when there are a couple of gallons of strawberries to slice that gets a little tedious. My resourceful husband to the rescue again. He suggested trying the egg slicer. It has very thin metal wires that perfectly slices a hard boiled egg into picturesque egg slices. Why not try it on the strawberries? At first I was reluctant. I figured it would just make mush out of my beautiful strawberries. But after two or so strawberries sliced perfectly I realized that the job of slicing would be a cinch. And with Ben helping me, we sliced up those strawberries, placed them on the racks, and set them in the dehydrator in no time at all.



Now the house is filled with the yummy sweet aroma of strawberries. In about 10 hours of dehydrating time the strawberries will dry down into crunchy, sort of leathery, strawberries that I will place in canning quart jars and seal tightly. They should be good for several months. I can see them on top of cereal, granola, in salads and the like. Yum!

Today's Journey Joy: strawberries